Like clockwork, the latest beta release of the Google app began rolling out just about the time the developers are headed out for the weekend. We've yet to see any live changes on this release, but there are some interesting additions to be found in a teardown. The floating sports tracker bubble appears to have some enhancements coming just in time for the Fall schedule, there are small additions to Collections and Google Assistant for Households, and a previously spotted General settings screen is growing larger

Google's been throwing its Smart Replies at pretty much every app or venue capable of accepting them, from Android Messages to Gmail. It even has a standalone app that introduces the shortcuts—and their occasionally borderline-offensive responses—to third-party app notifications. Now Gboard is testing out adding the same feature to other applications like Facebook and WhatsApp.

Gboard almost never fails to add an assortment of new, and sometimes unusual features with each update. The latest version bump doesn't disappoint. In this release, Gboard can now auto-complete email addresses from your contact list, adds support for Chinese and Korean keyboards, and launches a new universal media search feature that brings together emoji, stickers, and GIFs. There are also some other smaller improvements that will make it easier to set up multiple keyboards within a language and perhaps get suggestions and autocorrections for languages you've never even set up.

Since time immemorial (1998) Google's bread, butter, and raison d'être has been search. Now Google's changing the way search works a bit, empowering users by adding new feedback tools and changing results from their search ranking to bring you more relevant and accurate information. With these changes users should see less in the way of so-called "fake news" and other non-factual content (excluding searches for that material), and more accurate and relevant information pertaining to their search.

Google Keep can already autocomplete items in a grocery list saving you lots of time from typing things repeatedly, but it turns out that it can also autocomplete movie and TV show titles. We're not sure when exactly the option became available, it may have been there for months or it might be recent. Either way, it's there now, so consider this post a PSA for those of you who hadn't seen it before.

In order for Keep to start suggesting movies or TV shows for you, your list has to have something like "movies" in the title for the former, or "TV shows" for the latter.

Android Auto users were given a pleasant surprise when v6.9 of the Google app enabled the 'OK Google' activation phrase while driving (for many people). We haven't spotted any other visible changes with this release, but there are some interesting things buried in the apk that are also worth checking out. It looks like the search bar's autocomplete is about to gain some new tricks and there's a new (or at least improved) native image viewer in development that appears to have custom support for some of Google's custom search results.